No worries Lizie, sorry this didn't work out for you. It was a smart move to use the portal initially. Might me good to start tracking who is planning to fly soon on this fare? I am scheduled for beginning of April.

Thank you I guess it's all part and parcel of the learning curve. To be honest this has been a fantastic learning opportunity for me as first time I've done it. I didn't even have a skypartner to put the points to so will get on that for next time

Fingers crossed for everyone!!!

Thanks for updating us Lizzie.

There's never any hard and fast rules with these 'flash sales'. I've been lucky with two recent-ish ones - the Philippine Airlines LHR-HKG-LHR J £500 one that stuck (and was booked via Lastminute.com so I really wasn't expecting it to) and the Aeroflot WAW-ICN one way for £280 in J.

In my heart of hearts i'm not hopeful for this AZ fare to stick. If it does, great. If it doesn't, another one will come along soon enough :-)

...........but i think all of you have good chances to fly it.
Hope really you can indeed use your ticket.
cheers.

Great analysis. I agree that AZ will likely honor this fare. My concern is that since it is an X fare, with mapping error, AZ may honor it as X fare and reseat all in coach. Hope AZ will announce a decision by Monday.

May I say one thing?
A lot of people here keeps to quote the FLR-DUS (i was involved as well) and the subsequent drama. I think history and airlines proved out of discussion that every "special" fare has its own destiny. Moreover there are three points:
1) FLR-DUS was a total different scenario: full seasonality, the whole world as destination, incredible routings, a number or airlines involved (particularly EY) and so on. In this case seasonality is limited, routings are limited and basically we have two destinations served via JV services... if I can go deeper, i'd say that except some FTer wanting to maximize miles and flying with 2 stops via CDG on AF, the others will take the more reasonable one-connection via FCO on AZ, meaning that the fare involves only AZ and marginally AF. Furthermore, the booking class was the lowest one, inventory has not been hit so heavily and for low-season.
2) 480 eur (or a few more) is not so low. It's basically an economy price, meaning that- in the worst case - for AZ this does not represent a real loss, rather a loss of earnings. In the best case, it means selling a seat at a very low price that differently would be empty.
3) I'm a Frequent flyer since 2001, and sorry for the newbies but I'd like to point out that AZ incurred in "special" fares a lot of times in the last 20 years.... and it's not fair to talk only about the FLR-DUS which is probably the only case where they cancel the tickets... just to name some: in the mid-2000, there was a very famous fare YYZ-LCA which was honoured..... then they had a great fare from LAX to almost every where in Europe (it was 2007 iirc) which was not a destination served by AZ directly: 200 eur to fly biz class in AF codeshare and the ticket was honoured. Then there was the case of the "discount promo" from Japanese version of AZ website, which basically discounted heavily tickets from all over the world: in this case AZ honoured all the tickets if there was at least a 0.01$ of credit card charging after the discount.
I'm not defending Alitalia (I quite hate them) and I don't know what AZ will do this time but I'm just saying that history has examples regarding different behaviours and approaches to the matter on a case-by-case basis.

About Alitalia, while I'm italian and I really do hope to see it failed (sorry but I pay it since when I was born through tax paying), I think the business class product is totally in line with major european carriers (in some area is even over the par!) and it totally worths the price. For those worried about the airline going out of market, I won't think this will ever happen but in the case it will be not so soon.

Having said so, I'm not on this fare (my credit cards are still in intensive care unit after CX F deal) but i think all of you have good chances to fly it.
Hope really you can indeed use your ticket.
cheers.

With respect, in the last three years Alitalia has pulled pretty much everything.. Of course, each instance is different. Hopefully different experience here.

There's never any hard and fast rules with these 'flash sales'. I've been lucky with two recent-ish ones - the Philippine Airlines LHR-HKG-LHR J £500 one that stuck (and was booked via Lastminute.com so I really wasn't expecting it to) and the Aeroflot WAW-ICN one way for £280 in J.

In my heart of hearts i'm not hopeful for this AZ fare to stick. If it does, great. If it doesn't, another one will come along soon enough :-)

i almost went for the LHR-HKG-LHR with PA but i stopped myself. stopped myself for every error thatís ever come up. This is the first error fare iíve ever jumped on so i hope it sticks!!

If I wanted to go ahead and cancel this (booked one to LAX) ... Is this possible? Not sure I want risk being reseated in coach or waiting for days for confirmation it will be honoured.

I booked thorugh Alitalia using Amex. Should I request refund from Amex on account I am unsure of whether it will be honoured properly ?

Even an if you think it will be honoured, appreciate anyone's advice on how to cancel.

Amex will never refund you based on your feelings.
You just need to wait. If AZ reseats everybody in economy than you can ask them for the refund.
And only after that you can ask Amex to help you if AZ is taking too much time.

Unless you still have the 24h window to cancel the ticket directly with AZ

Great analysis. I agree that AZ will likely honor this fare. My concern is that since it is an X fare, with mapping error, AZ may honor it as X fare and reseat all in coach. Hope AZ will announce a decision by Monday.

I will not accept this. I will request a refund instead and if AZ balks I will simply provide my original e-ticket to AMEX and initiate a charge back

Great analysis. I agree that AZ will likely honor this fare. My concern is that since it is an X fare, with mapping error, AZ may honor it as X fare and reseat all in coach. Hope AZ will announce a decision by Monday.

Hi TerryK and thanks!
My suggestion is to log-in on AZ website, just for the purpose of choosing seat or updating details and save the change. If nothing has changes this will involve an automated email included reservation details and ticket receipt. The ticket will report the class of service (a friend of mine did it and it reflects BUSINESS). At least you have something more in your hands documenting AZ was selling it as Biz.
Hope this helps.
Luke

With respect, in the last three years Alitalia has pulled pretty much everything.. Of course, each instance is different. Hopefully different experience here.

Sorry but I disagree. I don't want to disclose more but in the last three years AZ had mixed reactions on "special fares". Of course, the FLR-DUS being the most popular, it's common to see AZ as a carrier always not honouring tickets.
I repeat, I hate AZ and I don't want to defend them.... but in this case they are not so horrible.
Cheers

.....My suggestion is to log-in on AZ website, just for the purpose of choosing seat or updating details and save the change. If nothing has changes this will involve an automated email included reservation details and ticket receipt......